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BTK signaling drives CD1dhiCD5+ regulatory B-cell differentiation to promote pancreatic carcinogenesis

Oncogene volume 38, pages 3316–3324 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

The immune microenvironment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is comprised of a heterogeneous population of cells that are critical for disease evolution. Prominent among these are the specialized CD1dhiCD5+ regulatory B (Breg) cells that exert a pro-tumorigenic role by promoting tumor cell proliferation. Dissecting the molecular pathways regulating this immune sub-population can thus be valuable for uncovering potential therapeutic targets. Here, we investigate Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), a key B-cell kinase, as a potential regulator of CD1dhiCD5+ Breg differentiation in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. Treatment of cytokine-induced B cells in vitro with the high specificity BTK inhibitor Tirabrutinib inhibited CD1dhiCD5+ Breg differentiation and production of IL-10 and IL-35, essential mediators of Breg immunosuppressive functions. The BTK signaling pathway was also found to be active in vivo in PanIN-associated regulatory B cells. Tirabrutinib treatment of mice bearing orthotopic KrasG12D-pancreatic lesions severely compromised stromal accumulation of the CD1dhiCD5+ Breg population. This was accompanied by an increase in stromal CD8+IFNγ+ cytotoxic T cells and significant attenuation of tumor cell proliferation and PanIN growth. Our results uncover a novel role for BTK in regulating CD1dhiCD5+ Breg differentiation and emphasize its potential as a therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L.J. Taylor for help with article preparation and members of the Bar-Sagi lab for valuable discussions and comments. The authors also thank NYU Langone’s Cytometry and Cell Sorting Laboratory, which is supported in part by grant P30CA016087 from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, for providing cell sorting/flow cytometry technologies. This work was supported in part by Gilead Sciences, Inc., Foster City, CA, USA, by NIH/NCI grant CA210263 (D.B.-S.) and by the Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team grant SU2C-AACR-DT14-14 (to D.B.-S.). Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation administered by the American Association for Cancer Research.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA

    Shipra Das & Dafna Bar-Sagi

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  1. Shipra Das
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Correspondence to Dafna Bar-Sagi.

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Das, S., Bar-Sagi, D. BTK signaling drives CD1dhiCD5+ regulatory B-cell differentiation to promote pancreatic carcinogenesis. Oncogene 38, 3316–3324 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-018-0668-3

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